[Fineus]

When making or looking at mods or renders, what do you think is better? making the mod/render look really good - though not accurate in the real world (i.e rainbow coloured nebula with that wind-blown look) or do you go for dull, but accurate nebula (clouds of drifting gas, usually just red or some othersuch colour as seen in those NASA photos and so on.

Personally I go for beauty before accuracy, as thats the point of a game or render= to enjoy it and have fun looking at or using it. But what do you guy think?

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[NeoHunter]

Accuracy.

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[Fineus]

Why? just saying accuracy won't make me change the way I render  

[Shrike]

Techy.  I like having a reason for what I model. (slighty different that what we're discussing, but applicable)

[Setekh]

I try to combine both. Then it's really cool  

[Starwing]

Beauty. But make it so it looks as if you knew what you are doing, so you can invent the logical explanations later  

[Warlock]

Always keep on thing in the back of your mind. The NASA images we have are not 100% accurate. There's several reasons for this.
1. Even the almisty space telescope doesn't get the clearest of images.
2. They have to touch up every single image they get.


My theory, how do we know exactly what a nebual, or anything else for that matter REALLY looks like?

Now I've been a space nut for 27 years now. Yup since birth   My folks used to let me stay home long enough to watch each and every shuttle launch, or anything else big. So far the only 100% accurate thing I've seen was the Challenger going boom back in the 80s.

So what do we really draw our views from?

On one hand we've got the touched up images from space, as accurate as we can get but still inhanced and blurry being several million miles away from the source of the image,...or other Sci Fi designers like Gene Rodenbury.

Personally, I'm more for doing the Star Trek thing, make it simply look Awe Inspiring. Why? Because THAT my friend is what Sci Fi is.

Look at the nebulas in Star Trek or 100 other Sci Fis, even Titan AE, which was all CGI work.

And keep one other thing in mind, in space,..deep space, gravity varies, Jupiter is all gas, but from the right view if appears solid.

Also keep in mind space is COLD, what happens to gases in a cold environment? They freeze thus becoming a solid.

So who's to say somewhere out there in millions of lightyears of space, there isn't the proer collection of frozen gasses for any type of design one of us creates?

 



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[Fineus]

Make the excuses later... I like that  

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[Warlock]

LOL

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[Martinus]

Speaking of frozen stuff did anyone hear that they found a huge ball of frozen alcohol? Before you strap into your fighter and go on a wild goose chase, it's way way too weak to have any effect. (no good for Bosch Beer   )

[Shrike]

Except that the density of a nebula is comparable to a good vacuum on Earth....

[Darkshear]

I think it really depends on the universe you are creating the model for...for instance, when I work in the Wing Commander world...well they don't know what technical or realism is...so I go for beauty  

I think it all just depends on what you are making it for, right now I am working on a garbage scow with realistic physics and so on...because I wanted something that could possibly be real...

Just depends on what look you are going for...
Everything is going to be a little different, and a mixture of both...after all this is art...the point is to make it look good  

[Darkshear]

A side note:

Everyone in the sci world goes for some beauty over accuracy...

It is very rare to see 100% accurate visual effects in space.

The prime example of this is light.
In the depths of space there is not much of it, yet somehow all our (And everyone elses, from star trek to star wars ro babylon 5) has nicely illuminated ships  
Which is pretty much impossible unless in relativly close proximity to a sun or other light producing phenomena, or close to a light reflecting object, such as a moon or planet.
(Remember the Enterprise D flying at high warp and still having that nice light sitting somewhere off of the front top left? Same with the Flacon in hyperspace...)
The point is, total realism can get boring, so you have to cheat at least a little  

[This message has been edited by Darkshear (edited 04-03-2001).]

[NeoHunter]

I choose accuracy because I think it looks nicer that way. Nebulas are clouds of gas, not combed clouds or gas. The effect you are doing now looks like some giant comb just went through it.

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[Warlock]

Reminder :

A Nebula is most normally from an old exploding sun or other spacial disturbance that creates "force" such as a wind effect,..these can go millions of miles per hour at the time and would give the gas a "wond blown" look and after these winds fade,..without a major gravity well the nebs stay that way  


Check out some of the NASA nebula images, of them look the same way.

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[Warlock]

Just a few REAL nebula pics  

 

 

 

 

 



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[Setekh]

 

Originally posted by NeoHunter:
I choose accuracy because I think it looks nicer that way.

Need I remind you that ships that are completely black - against a pretty much black background - don't look that nice?  

 

Originally posted by NeoHunter:
because I think it looks nicer that way.

Hey, you realise - this means you go for beauty!  

[Shrike]

IMO, any good combat spaceship should be matte black.  Makes it harder to find visually.  

[Setekh]

True, but hell for gameplay  

[Fineus]

I've often wondered why sci-fi ships don't have black colour schemes... the only one to pull it off even slightly well was the Shadow Ships in B5, but even those had a shiny property to them that mean't they were well seen in space.

Why? beauty.

As for the nebulas... why do you think the effect was put in there if it wasn't mean't to be used? and it must have been mean't to be used, to make accurate looking nebula  

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